


Phir se Karna | Bad End | Stand Before the Lord of Song

by PaxDuane



Series: Phir se Karna [1]
Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: An AU of an AU, Canonical Character Death, Chalacta/Concord Dawn, Family, Fix-It, Gen, Good Parent Jango Fett, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Nonbinary Jango Fett, a refrain of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah, that I haven't posted yet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:42:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25393297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaxDuane/pseuds/PaxDuane
Summary: There are things that Jango Fett could never voice on Kamino, history they could never claim while were separated from their family.I did my best / It wasn't much / I couldn't feel / So I tried to touch / I've told the truth / I didn't come to fool you / And even though it all went wrong / I'll stand before the Lord of Song / With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah.Canon compliant but AU fromPhir se KarnaandDeception in Kyber.Inspired by listening to Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah (1984 lyrics) while working on DiK and PsK.
Relationships: Boba Fett & Depa Billaba, Boba Fett & Jango Fett, Boba Fett & Shaak Ti
Series: Phir se Karna [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1839121
Comments: 2
Kudos: 28





	Phir se Karna | Bad End | Stand Before the Lord of Song

**Author's Note:**

> So I actually used one of the lesser known verses as the main refrain for this, because it was in the version I'd been listening to it and I loved it. 
> 
> In the end, it's a humbling of themself that Jango chooses these lyrics. In Phir se Karna, which if you're here before it's posted _I'm sorry_ , they eventually put a hold on their place in the family tree when they become Mand'alor, because of politics. After the True Mandalorians are mostly wiped out, they didn't have much use for intersystem politics and would have removed the hold. However, Visions Happened. 
> 
> This isn't how I see the Prequels era happening in PsK based divergences. For one, I'm a big fan of Jango living and I have come to enjoy writing Sar Labooda too so I'd like her to live as well ;;;; But I thought it was an interesting direction to go. I might spin further on this and talk about Boba's relationship with Mace Windu if this were the direction the galaxy went after PsK. 
> 
> Finally, it's Bad End in the title because Jango dies. It's not the "Worst End" possible, but it is the worst I'll probably explore outside of possibly posting Amavasya. Phir se Karna, Hindi for Redo or Do Over, refers to the initial deviation from Canon/Legends Canon, using Deception in Kyber (since I made it technically Canon Compliant), being Jaster Mereel's decision on whether or not to raise Jango with deference to how close their recent family was to Chalacta and learning Jango is related to the royal family there. Depa Billaba, Sar Labooda, and Shaak Ti are all cousins in the same dynasty as the Fett family. Also It's my Mace/Jaster fic I occasionally gush to people about.

Jango Fett crosses their legs in front of the holo they are projecting. It’s a cut away image of a wall that goes past even the holocam that took it could reach, a set of stairs leading close to it and a trio of altars flush against the stone. Blurry in the foreground are slabs of more stone, mostly empty but with a few illegible names on one of them.

The wall, though, has the image of a woman who sits as he does, skirts cut away to reveal close cut trousers and fill the space around her. Her hair is one long, thick braid that goes over her shoulder with four separate ones orbiting it like DNA strands. Her eyes are closed and between them are the Marks of Illumination that Chalactan Adepts wear. The line of the Marks, which are not just the Lesser and Greater Marks but the pinched halo of the High mark, only worn by High Adepts, drops down to the middle altar. Her knees are above the other two. Above those knees, her hands rest, palms up. Two other sets of arms come from her shoulders, marking her not only as a High Adept but as Mataji. The head of the ancestral spirits for the mortuary temple whose walls she graces.

Jango hasn’t seen the Temple since they were eighteen, before Galidraan. They haven’t worn the Lesser and Greater Marks since then, as well, or the armor they wore until that visit.

The first vision warned those things could endanger them. After they escaped the spice transport and took back their extra armor, they considered returning.

Most of the True Mandalorians were dead; _they_ were thought to be dead. They managed to stumble back to the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, flinching at every Knight or Master that came near them until they found Depa.

Depa helped them recover, with Shaak’s help and Maz’buir’s support. Maz’buir made sure that Jango would take back the reparations set aside for the surviving families.

Depa and Shaak and Jango all had the same vision: it was not safe to remove the hold they’d made when they became Mand’alor. Not yet. They had to wait.

The final vision is one they just woke from. So often, visions did not come in their sleep. Not since they were a child, before they even started on the ancestral road to Illumination.

This one was horrible.

“Buir?” Boba calls from the doorway.

“You can come in,” Jango assures their son, who pads over to lean against them.

“Where’s that?” Boba asks.

Jango hesitates. It is a danger, to let Boba know the whole truth before the boy is away from Kamino for good. “It’s a place you’ll come to know well, one day,” they promise their son. “I need you to do something for me…”

Boba leans closer. “What?”

“If anything happens to me, you need to find one of two Jedi.”

“You hate the Jedi.”

“I hate most Jedi. There are four I trust… And two, maybe three, you will trust, if things work out how I think they might.” Jango sighs at that. If the galaxy was perfect, Boba would know his ba’buir without hatred. They drag their holopad over and bring up the portraits of Shaak, Depa, and Sar. “This is Master Shaak Ti and Master Depa Billaba, and this is Knight Sar Labooda. They will take care of you if we are separated. Depending on how things go, you will either meet Shaak or Depa first. But you must find them, above all else.”

“Okay…”

“And you _need_ to tell them I said for you to say, ‘ _And even though it all went wrong / I’ll stand before the Lord of Song / with nothing on my tongue but / Hallelujah_.’”

Boba dutifully repeats the words and Jango feels some of their anxiety leave them.

***

Boba Fett tears away from Kote the first chance he gets. He didn’t want to get on the transport and leave Buir’s body on Geonosis, but here he is along with a datachip in his pocket that Buir made sure he had to hand off to one of the ones they trusted.

Since he’s here, on Coruscant with the Jedi—with the Jedi that cut off Buir’s head—he needs to find someone.

He first catches sight of one of the two Chalactans, but she is kneeling beside the Jedi that killed Buir so he spirals away, dodging around until he sees a Togrutan speaking with a Zabrak.

Before he can stop himself, he’s tugging at her robes.

When she looks down, he can see she does look like the holo of Master Shaak Ti. “Is something wrong?” she asks, her Shili accent warm around him.

He swallows and pulls down his shields a smidge, to feel it better. It feels like Buir’s voice did. “My… My buir told me to find you and… And tell you he told me to say, ‘And even though it all went wrong / I’ll stand before the Lord of Song / with nothing on my tongue but / Hallelujah.’”

He reels back as the Togrutan Jedi drops to her knees, eyes wide and encircles him with her arms. It feels like she’s crying, in the Force, but there are no tears on her face. Do Togruta have tear ducts?

“Master Ti?” the Zabrak asks.

She waves him away, pulling back to look at Boba. She reaches up, smooths his curls out of his face. “I’m so sorry,” she whispers. “I’m so sorry we couldn’t stop it.”

Then she opens her mouth and sings.

“ _Baby I’ve been here before / I’ve known this room / I’ve walked this floor / I used to live alone before I knew you. // I’ve seen your flag on the marble arch / love is not a victory march / it’s a cold and it’s a broken / Hallelujah_.” She hiccups. “ _I did my best / it wasn’t much / I couldn’t feel / So I tried to touch // I’ve told the truth / I didn’t come to fool you / and even though it all went wrong / I’ll stand before the Lord of Song / with nothing on my tongue but / Hallelujah_.”

***

Depa stands with Boba as they look up at the towering image of Mataji Akshita on the Billaba Mortuary Temple’s walls. The empty slabs now are being filled with names and numbers. First, Jango Fett and Sar Labooda. Then they’ve been followed by every name they could find to go with the dead and ever number when they could not find a name.

The Raja, another cousin, has made sure of it.

Her Padawan, Caleb Dume, stands with some of her men at the entrance to the Temple, looking at all the names and numbers and the Adepts scrawling them on the stone in red.

Jango should have been the one to introduce their son to the Temple, to introduce _all of their children_ to the Temple.

But Jango had seen what was coming, known that they couldn’t.

One day, Boba will grow into the armor that Jango left here. The main colors are the family colors, with the head and shoulders dipped in scarlet that meanders and swirls down to the center of the chest, cored with maroon, like blood in a river. The rest is dark blues and greens like the depths of the same river. It’s made of only beskar, and it has the Lesser and Greater Marks painted on the forehead of the buy’ce.

It’s Boba’s inheritance as the oldest Fett, the one Jango managed to raise directly.

The war will be over soon, now that what the Order started with the datachip Jango sent—the warnings about the chips and what they dug from their contract—is wrapped in a nice bow for the Senate. Palpatine’s powers are crumbling. The chips are gone.

The survivors of the eyayade, the Vode has they call themselves, are foremost offered places on Chalacta, as parts of the Billaba dynasty and the royal family, and Concord Dawn, which is starting to wrap itself up in the string that connects the partially shattered planet to Chalacta. Citizenship will come from Chalacta’s system for all the Vode, but they’ll be allowed to live anywhere.

Boba, and most of the cadets, don’t have much choice. They’ll be on Chalacta, being taught the ways of the royal family. If they choose, or if they’re Boba, they will start on the path towards Illumination.

But this is the first step, one Boba has agreed to with a strong sense of duty and no little bit of mourning.

Boba looks up at the image of Mataji Akshita Vhett and takes a deep breath. He’s nearing the age his voice will be cracking every other word, but so far it’s not so bad.

“ _I did my best / it wasn’t much / I couldn’t feel / So I tried to touch // I’ve told the truth / I didn’t come to fool you / and even though it all went wrong / I’ll stand before the Lord of Song / with nothing on my tongue but / Hallelujah_.”

Mataji’s eyes are open and kind, her lips quirked up just enough to show a smile.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure in any of Phir se Karna itself I'd use Hallelujah as any part of the ritual elements the family uses in the mortuary temple, but it does ring with some of the rituals I know they'd use and it let's me poke further at Judaism's presence in India, especially in the fledgling years of Indian cinema. As is, consider it a placeholder instead of me butchering Hindi or Sanskrit to make an actual approximation of Chalactan language. Mataji.
> 
> Writing this while working on getting the first novelette of Deception in Kyber ready to start posting means I'm in the mood to do some worldbuilding about Chalacta and Concord Dawn. I can see the importance of a god of music, especially oral history and war songs, in both Mandalorian culture and how I'm writing Chalactan culture. So I'll be making a Lord of Song for that, for many of the Billaba family to be devoted to. 
> 
> I also dropped the description of Akshita (who is DiK's heroine) being a High Adept but didn't go into what that means at all. This is because I haven't focused on it much in DiK because she's not one yet. It'll happen after she retires from political life, which is technically after all of DiK. But basically, in DiK, a High Adept is a Challactan Adept who goes on to teach a certain number of others who reach Enlightenment and does a few other things. 
> 
> Colors!! Because Depa mentions Jango's armor at the Mortuary Temple is in the family colors. In DiK, Akshita's colors are gold, black, scarlet, and maroon (vengeance, justice, (fanon) defiance, and (fanon) power) while Blue's colors are blue and green (reliability and duty). Those two's branch of the Billaba dynasty took all those colors when together as their own. Personal colors are used for other things, like Jango's blue, purple, black, and silver and Boba's green and brown. Colors don't necessarily mean the same thing on Chalacta (originally) as in Mandalorian space but cultural exchange happens. And Akshita's name syncs up well with her colors, since it means limitless. Which...that might get brought up more than once in PsK stuff because it becomes an extra title for Billabas. Being "Akshitan" means both being limitless and having a beskar will. 
> 
> PS. Did anyone notice the painting?


End file.
